The US Dollar Index measures the strength of the US Dollar against a basket of foreign currencies. When the dollar was strong it reached as high as 190. The USDX is (and has been since fall) showing historic weakness.

Note: this is an important indicator that will help tell us when to sell our gold and silver.

Generally, as the US dollar tanks, gold and silver react by going up.

When the USDX drops to our target value we’ll have a very strong indication to SELL. My short-term prediction of silver (from Jan 10 when silver was at 15.62) at $21 by July is on track. My long-term predictions are these prices before the end of 2011:

I had two people ask me today who I’d vote for President. Each time I replied, “Well, like most Americans, I’m against the war in Iraq and against invading other countries. I’m voting for the only one who’s against both.”

Here’s the weird part: both people replied “Oh, Obama?”

Does the average American really believe Obama is against the war? Do they really think he’s against invading other countries? Sure, before he was a senator he gave a speech denouncing the war in 2002, and he still claims he’s the anti-war candidate. He says he’s against “the war” (not necessarily “war” in general) but his actions don’t match up.

Since becoming a senator, he’s consistently voted for war funding.

He claims (in yesterday’s debate), “Once we had driven the bus into the ditch, there were only so many ways we could get out. The question is: Who’s making the decision initially to drive the bus into the ditch?”

Uh, how ’bout we stop driving the bus in the ditch?

And about not invading another country…

On Aug 1, 2007 Obama gave a speech where he called for “a redeployment of troops into Afghanistan and even Pakistan — with or without the permission of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.” [ABC News]

Sure sounds like an invasion to me! How would we feel if the Chinese announced they would be sending 3 infantry brigades to California to hunt for “spies?”

So who’s running for President and against the war, and invading other countries?

Clinton? Naw, she voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2002, and continues to vote for funding.

McCain? You kidding me? He was singing about bombing Iran April 19, 2007. [Video] You know, to the tune of the Beach Boys “Barbara Ann.” And last month he was talking about “maintaining a presence in Iraq for another 100 years.” [Video]

So who’s against the war, and invading other countries? C’mon, I don’t really have to tell you, do I? You know his name…

“Good morning. At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning new attacks on our country. Their goal is to bring destruction to our shores that will make September the 11th pale by comparison.” — George W. Bush, Feb. 13, 2008

Captain Eric May is a former Army military intelligence and public affairs officer, as well as a former NBC editorial writer. His political and military analyses have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Houston Chronicle and Military Intelligence Magazine.

Captain May has released the names of the three American cities he thinks are most at risk for the next 9/11 attack promised by W.:

Primary Target: Houston. Over the past four years military and police veterans like me have been alerting the public to government exercises aiming at the nuclear destruction of Houston petro-suburbs. Five times in those four years we were able to predict to within a day major petrochemical explosions in those petro-suburbs. The odds against this kind of accuracy are astronomical. As the center of Big Oil and the Bush Family, Houston remains the most endangered city in America.

Secondary Target: Chicago. While Houston is the most endangered city, the most endangered building — the best candidate to be the next World Trade Center — is the Sears Tower. Official sources have pronounced it just that ever since the original 9/11 attack, when they said it was on the Al Qaeda hit list. Larry Silverstein, who bought the Twin Towers two months before 9/11, led a group that purchased the Sears Tower on 3/11, 2004, the day of the Madrid bombings. Federal officials have been pointing to Chicago and its Sears Tower as Al Qaeda targets since the original 9/11 attacks, and have repeated the threat ever since. In May 2006,, the government scheduled secret 9/11-type exercises in Chicago, while Chicago Mayor Daley was docked conveniently away in Israel for his first visit there.

Tertiary Target: Portland. Portland, called “Little Beirut” by Bush cronies because of its enmity to Bush 41 and Bush 43, only made my top three list last summer, when it was designated as a target for a nuclear attack by successive exercises Noble Resolve and TOPOFF. The language in an official press release stated the case plainly enough: “Noble Resolve will coordinate with officials in Oregon to model a nuclear attack on Portland.” In the course of researching Portland for a series of articles I wrote about the city and its exercises. I discovered that Stanford and Harvard had prepared a detailed nuclear fallout map for it, that national military commanders and state National Guard commanders were telling different stories about what the exercises were trying to accomplish, and that Portland’s The Oregonian newspaper was doing everything it could to avoid investigating the frightening anomalies. I wasn’t at all surprised that the last day of the exercises found the Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff in downtown Portland, which was largely closed down by an “unexpected” bomb threat.

Joe Lents hasn’t made a payment on his $1.5 million mortgage since 2002.

That’s when Washington Mutual Inc. first tried to foreclose on his home in Boca Raton, Florida. The Seattle-based lender failed to prove that it owned Lents’ mortgage note and dropped attempts to take his house. Subsequent efforts to foreclose have stalled because no one has produced the paperwork.

“If you’re going to take my house away from me, you better own the note,” said Lents, 63, the former chief executive officer of a now-defunct voice recognition software company.

Judges in at least five states have stopped foreclosure proceedings because the banks that pool mortgages into securities and the companies that collect monthly payments haven’t been able to prove they own the mortgages. The confusion is another headache for U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as he revises rules for packaging mortgages into securities.

“I think it’s going to become pretty hairy,” said Josh Rosner, managing director at the New York-based investment research firm Graham Fisher & Co. “Regulators appear to have ignored this, given the size and scope of the problem.”

More than $2.1 trillion, or 19 percent, of outstanding mortgages have been bundled into securities by private banks, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a Bethesda, Maryland-based industry newsletter. Those loans may be sold several times before they land in a security. Mortgage servicers, who collect monthly payments and distribute them to securities investors, can buy and sell the home loans many times. [more…]

Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other’s borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal.

Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas.

The U.S. military’s Northern Command, however, publicized the agreement with a statement outlining how its top officer, Gen. Gene Renuart, and Canadian Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, head of Canada Command, signed the plan, which allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency.

The new agreement has been greeted with suspicion by the left wing in Canada and the right wing in the U.S.

On right-wing blogs in the U.S. it is being used as evidence of a plan for a “North American union” where foreign troops, not bound by U.S. laws, could be used by the American federal government to override local authorities.

“Co-operative militaries on Home Soil!” notes one website. “The next time your town has a ‘national emergency,’ don’t be surprised if Canadian soldiers respond. And remember – Canadian military aren’t bound by posse comitatus.”

Posse comitatus is a U.S. law that prohibits the use of federal troops from conducting law enforcement duties on domestic soil unless approved by Congress. [more…]